Documentary to follow Pakistan's young education crusader Malala

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban last year for demanding education for girls, will be the subject of a documentary film, its producers said on Tuesday.

Malala Yousafzai, wearing a white shawl that had belonged to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, gives her first speech since the Taliban in Pakistan tried to kill her for advocating education for girls, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, July 12, 2013. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Davis Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for the 2006 environmental documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” starring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, will direct the yet-to-be-titled documentary that is slated to be released in late 2014.

The film will follow Yousafzai as she campaigns for the right of children to education, said producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, who also produced the 2007 Afghan drama, “The Kite Runner.”

Yousafzai was targeted for killing by the Islamist Taliban in October last year because of her campaign against the group’s efforts to deny women education.

She not only survived the attack, but recovered to the extent that she celebrated her 16th birthday last week with a passionate speech at the United Nations in New York.

“There are few stories Laurie and I have ever come across that are as compelling, urgent or important as the real-life struggle of Malala and her father Ziauddin on behalf of universal education for children,” Parkes said in a statement.

The teenager was treated in Pakistan before the United Arab Emirates provided an air ambulance to fly her to Britain, where doctors mended parts of her skull with a titanium plate.

Unable to return safely to Pakistan, Yousafzai enrolled in a school in Birmingham, England in March.

“Let us pick up our books and pens,” she said in her U.N. speech. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution.”

The film will be funded by Image Nation Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of government-owned Abu Dhabi Media, which is based in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Mary Milliken and David Brunnstrom